moonlight, vision, concealment

[Bad Paper]

How do I handle vision in moonlight?

I'm thinking like 10% concealment in full moonlight, 20% in first/last quarter, and 40% in starlight. Should this be different for melee and ranged?

And Spot checks? mayyybe -1 per 5' distance? dunno.

Or should I just do this: human/halfling/orc/dwarf have vision to 60' and elf/gnome have vision to 120'. That one seems boring as heck.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Races with low-light see in moonlight just as well as if it were day. That's in the rules for low-light vision.

I'd just say that under moonlight, everyone is concealed. So you can see things as far away as you want, but they can hide in even open terrain, and you get a 20% miss chance.

After all - bombers liked having moonlight about so they could see the target, which was typically more than 60 feet away... It doesn't make sense to implement a distance restriction.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

How do I handle vision in moonlight?

Depends on who's doing the asking...

We'll assume you've got 4 creatures standing about: an elf, a dwarf, a human, and a human with a torch. They're all sufficiently far enough away from each other.

1. The elf can see just as if it was daylight outside, with absolutely no penalties or other modifiers:

LOW-LIGHT VISION
Characters with low-light vision have eyes that are so sensitive to light that they can see twice as far as normal in dim light. Low-light vision is color vision. A spellcaster with low-light vision can read a scroll as long as even the tiniest candle flame is next to her as a source of light.

Characters with low-light vision can see outdoors on a moonlit night as well as they can during the day.

2. The dwarf can see anything around him within 60' with absolutely no penalties or other modifiers, because of his darkvision. Outside of 60', normal light conditions prevail.

And here, of course, is where the interesting rulings happen. What *are* the existing light conditions? Interestingly, the SRD does not provide any indication about what the ambient light level on a moonlit night is, so I'll provide my own philosophy:

For a moonlit night, I believe everything is illuminated with Shadowy Illumination (20% miss chance for concealment).

Therefore:

3. The human with the torch normally has 20' of Bright illumination, and 20' of shadowy illumination. Since (as I mentioned above), the ambient light level is shadowy, the human can see out to 40' as if it were bright (Shadowy + Shadowy = Bright, so no penalties), and out to line of sight as if it were Shadowy (20% miss chance).

4. The human without the torch is somewhat out of luck - everything surrounding him is Shadowy, including 5' away. Thus, any attack has a 20% miss chance.

So, what happens on a moonless, starry night (again, a situation for which the SRD has no rules)?

1. The elf treats everything as Shadowy - there's still light around, just not enough to see clearly by. However, his vision is limited only by line of sight.

2. The dwarf sees perfectly fine out to 60', beyond which he's blind.

3. The human with the torch sees fine out to 20', and Shadowy out to 40', beyond which he's blind.

4. The human without the torch is completely blind.

 

[Bad Paper]

Spot checks

OK, so I had forgotten that low-light vision kiddies can see as well in the moonlight as sunlight. For partial moons, I will treat this as a cloudy day, so no penalty, unless it's a cloudy partial-moonlit night...

But how do I handle Spot checks in shadowy illumination? So far I'm thinking just -1 per 5' distance.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Spot lists the penalty as -1 per 10' of distance. It does not specify any additional penalties based on light conditions.

The section on light and vision also does not specify any penalties to Spot checks based on lighting conditions - other than the fact that, in shadowy illumination, someone can Hide.

EDIT:

Speficially, the penalty listed in the Spot skill description only applies to Spot checks used to determine the distance at which an encounter begins, and doesn't seem to be applicable to "normal" uses of the skill.

 

[sfedi]

Speficially, the penalty listed in the Spot skill description only applies to Spot checks used to determine the distance at which an encounter begins, and doesn't seem to be applicable to "normal" uses of the skill.

Note that that would apply in every situation except during combat.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Note that that would apply in every situation except during combat.

Er, no, it wouldn't.

Using a Spot check to read lips? No such penalty.

Using a Spot check to see something at the bottom of a shallow pool? No such penalty.

Using a Spot check to see through a Disguise? No such penalty.

Etc.